9/12 + 10 yrs

I had only one conversation yesterday remembering 9-11. It was with McK naturally. 

He remembered working a construction job in Iowa and his dad shaking his shoulder to wake him that morning. The fog of sleep with the news of the first plane crashing into the Twin Towers. He remembers being glued to the television thereafter and how his stomach felt like that sickly blue light that comes a tv screen. 

My memory was finding out at work. My cubicle at that point was in the downtown office right next to the break room where the television was on all day long People would wonder down the hallway in a daze to and from the latest news report. Strangely enough from the moment I heard I decided to avoid the press coverage like the plague. We were all in shock. Nobody really knew what was going on but the person with the camera rolling, the microphone in hand, was going to have to say something. At best the words would be wild speculation. At worst the live-television script prompt a frenzy of fear and prejudice. 

No, actually, my worst case was darker than that and pretty clear in my mind. It was of a chatter that swelled to vengeance and contempt and ultimately unlocked the U.S. nuclear arsenal at whomever we could hold responsible. As a child of the Regan-era “evil empire” “leave them in an ash heap of history” “we win they lose” Cold War rhetoric this worst-case wasn't hard to imagine. And I was pretty deliberate about deciding if that was going to be the narrative in this instance...I really, really didn’t want to be anywhere near it. So I stayed at my cubicle all day. I got plenty of details about the day’s events from friends, colleagues and family. Was I stunned? Yes. Forever changed? You betcha. Grieving? Certainly. I just couldn’t watch the news. 

After work I went home to my parents’ house on Touzalin Avenue, called my boyfriend in Iowa, and went to bed. The laundry-soap smell of clean bedsheets couldn’t chase out the stinging, almost metallic fog of fear all around me. 

It wasn't until the next day that I read any headlines or listened to even the smallest bit of the news coverage to get a pulse on the media narrative. I found a country filled with horror, and grief. But the tone wasn’t particularly vengeful and there certainly wasn’t the sound of a battle cry. To say I was relieved is such a massive understatement I can barely stand to type it here. 

I remember more of September 12th and the days afterwards. Nine days after the 12th I discovered I was carrying a super-silent ninja baby. One that had been conceived months earlier but of whom I was unaware. The secret of this baby’s existence was the sandy shore I felt washed up on. I wouldn't feel so lost again in days and weeks that followed.